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BRADENTON, Fla. - It's hard to find a customer who doesn't love the southern cooking and comfort food served up at Lee Roy Selmon's restaurants.

"They have very good food and the service is excellent," says customer Cheryl Kirkhoff.

Named for the late Bucs Hall of Famer, the restaurant has six Bay area locations and a 7th on the way.

On May 21, a state inspector visiting the Bradenton store on Cortez Road found 10 critical violations, including a mold-like substance inside the ice machine, no paper towels for employees washing their hands, and rodent droppings found inside the carryout paper bags, on top of the canned food, inside a box of Splenda, and near the brown sugar.

The inspector also documented what appeared to be evidence of rodents gnawing through a plastic bag chewing on the sandwich buns.

"It's gross because it could turn around, it could be infectious, it could be disease," said a disgusted Kirkhoff.

10 News stopped in to see if Lee Roy Selmon's has corrected its issues, but was told it could not film in the restaurant.

Instead, Lee Roy Selmon's proprieter Eric Hooligan read a written statement saying, "Lee Roy Selmon's Restaurant prides itself on operating rigorously and maintaining a clean and safe restaurants. Official health reports as of April 9 had given the restaurant a clean bill of health. On May 21, we were alerted to a problem and immediately took aggressive steps to resolve the issue."

Unable to see in the kitchen for ourselves, we have no way of actually knowing if the rodents are gone for good, and that leaves some customers uneasy.

"It makes me quite nervous to have to go in there to eat when I hear all of that. It's kind of disgusting," says Kirkhoff.

Lee Roy Selmon's says an inspector returned the following day and gave the restaurant a clean bill of health, but we found on the followup report the inspector found some of the same problems, including slime still in the ice machine and no paper towels at the sink.

Click here to see the Bradenton Lee Roy Selmon's entire inspection history.